Audio Visual Insights for Web-Conferencing and Live Streaming

Remember last week when we talked about Zoom Video Communicationsadding live streaming to their webinar platform (article here)? Now the video production software market is looking for a piece of the pie, in a converging industry with a combined worth an estimated $100+ Billion by 2020 (Video Communications & Live Streaming — See sources below)!

So let’s look at one of the live streaming industries most innovative video production companies who has slipped in a peer-to-peer video conferencing add-on to their latest release. vMix just announced new feature called “vMix Call” and I think this is a GAME CHANGER for the live streaming market! vMix Call allows users to instantly launch a video conference call inside their professional 4K capable video production software suite. As you will see in this video vMix now supports the ability to add an input specifically for video calling with guests on your live show. This is perhaps one of the most exciting features being released in vMix 19 AND it’s already available for BETA testing.

The NewTek ™ NDI (Network Device Interface) is a open source IP protocol for sending and receiving ultra low latency, high definition video and audio sources for live broadcasts. The protocol has been pioneered by Dr. Andrew Cross, NewTek’s president and CTO, to become a new standard for the industry.

What does this mean for NewTek and the popular TriCasters?

TriCasters will now have the capability of working with any NDI compatible device and provide low-latency HD video functionality. Device manufactures can now implement the NDI open source code for seemless integration into a NewTek TriCaster broadcast workflow.

What does this mean for the live streaming market?

The live streaming market is set to grow signifigantly in the coming years. Open source technology is a proven way to spur growth and market engagement.

*Some of the technology mentioned is still in Beta. Check with NewTek for latest release notes...

Our Predictions by Market:

Broadcast Market Overview:

The NewTek NDI allows for ultra low latency connections between multiple systems. Therefore various systems can now share resources over a local area network. A TriCaster Mini system can share video and audio sources with a NewTek TriCaster 460 allowing for flexible deployments for any budget. In the below example we are showing a NewTek TriCaster with various HD-SDI PTZOptics cameras connected. This Tricaster is then connected via NDI to a TriCaster Mini with additional PTZOptics HD-SDI cameras available as video sources.

Tip! - Sharing ResourcesNow multiple operators can gain access to broadcast assets across a LAN “Local Area Network“ with ultra-low latency. Consider setting up a line of communication for instant messaging, audio conferencing or remote computer control. With remote computer control the main broadcast studio has additional flexibility...

3. Branding - Recorded webinars can be watching thousands of times over so it's important for our marketing team to brand the video. We used live production branding during the show and we used additional branding using Adobe After Effects.

Why Branding is important?

Webinars are one of the most important tools in today's modern marketers tool bag. No matter how many live viewers you get during your live event you will ALWAYS get more views on-demand on YouTube/Vimeo. A video that receives 7,500 views/day is equal to 46 hyper efficient sales people talking to clients about your product (from Salesforce.com). That makes the value of your on-demand videos sky rocket (depending on the effectiveness of your video. So branding these videos is incredibly important and we have some tips on how you can do it!

Live Webinar Effects

The live effects that you see above are extremely easy to use and they add much need interactivity and life to the webinar. The Virtual Set capabilities can take your webinar anywhere in the world! So we create (16) virtual sets for banking/finance, house of worship, education and sales/marketing (See them here). We use a green screen to transport our "talent" to a suitable location vs our messy boardroom.

The benefit of live webinar effects is that you don't have to spend any time in post-production. You can also live stream the entire branded event to YouTube Live and you don't even have to store the files on your computer!

Post Production (Adobe After Effects, SONY Vegas, MovieMaker)

Anything you didn't catch live can always be added in post production. In the video above we added our logo's in the black bars from the Zoom recording. You can do almost anything you want with this technology so the sky is the limit. If you don't have a video editing person on staff, I would suggest using simple lower thirds, a virtual set with the LCD showing your content and/or using a interactive device like a iPad or Windows table to add interactivity to your webinar!

Free Ebook

Check out our free eBook below and tune in weekly for our Friday Webinars! This week we are interviewing PhD Christopher Jaynes from Mersive Solstice! Also, see "how we stream" at http://live.huddlecamhd.com!

Live streaming is the next big thing in production. It not only excites YouTube producers and Twitch gamers but also news channels and event managers. All big events are now live streamed to billions of users worldwide. It has become part of the ever growing network on the internet and continues to grow by a massive percent every year.

Update: September 2017 - Wirecast and vMix have both recently released huge updates to their live streaming software. The following blog post has been updated to include Wirecast 8 and vMix 20.